Floods in Rio Grande do Sul are a test for Lula, who may have his ‘Katrina moment’: what the international press says

Bloomberg’s analysis speaks of a “crucial test for Lula’s leadership.”

“The advisors [de Lula] They say he is acutely aware that this could be his ‘Katrina moment,’ a reference to the 2005 hurricane that caught US President George W. Bush off guard and entered the global vocabulary as a synonym for leadership failure in a crisis”, states the Bloomberg text, signed by Travis Waldron.

The agency said that Lula responded to the floods by meeting the basic needs of those affected, traveling to the region and signing a decree that removes emergency spending from fiscal rules.

“With more rain and falling temperatures expected throughout the week, the challenges will only increase,” says the Bloomberg text.

“This could give Lula the opportunity to recover a presidency plagued in recent months by internal rivalries, fights with Congress, market scrutiny over his spending plans and declining popularity.”

Bloomberg says that Lula was elected in the wake of the population’s dissatisfaction with the management of Jair Bolsonaro’s government during the covid-19 pandemic — and that this moment of the floods could define whether Lula will regain his leadership in the country, or lose it for once.

The British newspaper Financial Times highlighted the State’s financial loss — estimated at around R$5 billion.

“Rio Grande do Sul is Brazil’s fifth largest economy and is an important agricultural producer and industrial center,” says the report by Bryan Harris and Michael Pooler.

“The State is responsible for 70% of national rice production, and 10% is believed to have been lost due to floods. It is also expected that 30% of the State’s soybean harvest, of 21 million tons, will perish. Lula said that Brazil will import rice and beans from abroad to avoid food shortages.”

The text also cites criticism from professor Pedro Luiz Cortês, from USP, towards the Brazilian authorities: “The state and federal governments were ill-prepared for these climate emergencies.”

On Wednesday (8/5), the day the official death toll reached one hundred, the American newspaper New York Times published a report called, in free translation, “Images of a Brazilian city underwater” — with photos and reports from those affected.

“Brazil is facing one of the worst floods in recent history. Torrential rains have flooded the state of Rio Grande do Sul, in the south of the country, where 11 million people live, since the end of April and caused serious floods that flooded entire cities, blocked roads, broke a large dam and closed the international airport until June.”

The report by Ana Ionova and Tanira Lebedeff narrates the drama of some of those affected who managed to be rescued.

“Many of those left stranded waited for help on rooftops. Some took desperate measures to escape: when the shelter where her family was flooded, Ana Paula de Abreu, 40, swam to a rescue boat while holding her 11-year-old son under the arm. Two residents of a Porto Alegre neighborhood used an inflatable mattress to remove at least 15 people from their flooded homes.”

The New York Times quotes Mercedes Bustamante, a professor at the University of Brasília, who says that “the effects of El Niño [nas inundações no Rio Grande do Sul] have been exacerbated by a combination of climate change, deforestation and rampant urbanization.”

The Washington Post, the main newspaper in the American capital, also reported the floods.

“Even in a country increasingly accustomed to natural disasters caused by climate change, the floods that engulfed Rio Grande do Sul — one of the most developed and prosperous states in Brazil — seriously shook this nation of 215 million inhabitants. With more than half of the state’s cities facing flooding […], Rio Grande do Sul was not just affected. It was devastated.”

The report by Terrence McCoy and Marina Dias says that, despite warnings about the effects of climate change made by some Brazilian politicians and scientists, “the rhetoric produced few concrete changes.”

“In a comment made exclusively to The Washington Post, Lula attributed the devastation in Rio Grande do Sul to the failures of the global community to respond to climate change. He said there is a ‘historic debt’. The poorest countries that have historically emitted few gases greenhouse gases, he said, are suffering from pollution from richer nations.”

Lula told the Washington Post: “This was the third record flood in the same region of the country in less than a year. We and the world need to prepare every day with more plans and resources to deal with extreme weather events.”